Michel De Montaigne: Trending quotes (page 10)

“Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged God as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 12
Essais (1595), Book II

God , Religion , Parting , Perfection

“The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.”

Michel De Montaigne

Attributed

Pleasure , Art

“An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.”

Michel De Montaigne

Attributed

“The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One.”

Michel De Montaigne

Attributed

World , Appearance

“My appetite comes to me while eating.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 10. Of Books
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Parting

“Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.”

Michel De Montaigne

Attributed

Soul , Courage

“When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Cats , Sport

“All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book I, Ch. 20
Essais (1595), Book I

Pleasure , World

“How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among the friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book I, Ch. 14
Essais (1595), Book I

Life , World , Home

“And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 5. Upon some Verses of Virgil
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 11. Of Cripples
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Men , Understanding

“There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.”

Michel De Montaigne

Attributed

Fear , Passion

“Confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.”

Michel De Montaigne

Book I, Ch. 14
Attributed
Variant: Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

God , Confidence , Light

“Writing does not cause misery. It is born of misery.”

Michel De Montaigne

Attributed

“For my own part, I may desire in general to be other than I am; I may condemn and dislike my whole form, and beg of Almighty God for an entire reformation, and that He will please to pardon my natural infirmity: but I ought not to call this repentance, methinks, no more than the being dissatisfied that I am not an angel or Cato. My actions are regular, and conformable to what I am and to my condition; I can do no better; and repentance does not properly touch things that are not in our power; sorrow does.. I imagine an infinite number of natures more elevated and regular than mine; and yet I do not for all that improve my faculties, no more than my arm or will grow more strong and vigorous for conceiving those of another to be so.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 2
Essais (1595), Book III

God , Angels , Imagination , Nature

“It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.”

Michel De Montaigne

Attributed

Happiness

“The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.”

Michel De Montaigne

Book II, Ch. 20
Attributed

Joy

“I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 13. Of Experience
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Law

“Virtue refuses facility for her companion … the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 11
Essais (1595), Book II

Nature